THE PRIDE OF THE NAVY

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 160711, 26 July 1920, Page 6

THE PRIDE OF THE NAVY

H.M.S. HOOD. SURFACE SHIPS V. SUBMERSIBLES. LONDON, March 25. Must the notion that, in the absence of some such checks on violence as the League of Nations may provide, the differences of maritime nations will be decided in the air or beneath the waves, be "dismissed as the conception of dreamers? The conclusion of naval officers who, having been through the late war and having Jjad time to digest some, if not all, of its lessons, is that the capital ship is still very much alive, and though its characteristics may change materially, it will play a dominant part whenever, if ever, the rivalry in naval armaments has to be renewed. That being the case, it is of considerable interest to learn something more about the Empire’s latest super-dread-nought H.M.S. Hood, which is now undergoing exhaustive sea-trials with results exceeding anticipations. This monster is the largest, swiftest, most powerfully nrmed, and most completely protected man-of-war hitherto built, and on a displacement about twice that off the Queen Elizabeth, she has attained a speed of over 32 knots, or about 37 statute miles per hour. The Hood mounts eight 15in guns, besides her anti-torpedo armament of twelve s.Sin weapons and four anti-aircraft guns; she is pierced for six torpedo tubes; her armour protection is equivalent to more than a third of her load draught displacement, and she carries 1200 tons of oil fuel in normal conditions —• and can store, if necessary, as much as 4000 tons. Moreover, we have it on authority of Sir Eustace De Eyncourt, Director of Naval Construction, that she is immune as no man-of-war previously built has been immune from submarine attack. She has been designed as an effective reply to the submarine, and Sir Eustace gives the assurance that she is “as safe against attack from torpedoes under water as she is against gun attacks above water.” Also the Hood is in many erespects “a home luxury” compared to her predecessors. There is, indeed, no ship afloat which can compare with this newest unit of the British Fleet, and some people may feel inclined to regret that the Board of Admiralty which was in office at the time of the Armistice agreed to break up the three sister vessels which were then being built. This action was taken in response to the urgent demand for naval economy; but perhaps, in View of the large sums whffeh had already been spent on these incompleted ships, it would have been the truest economy to complete, thus giving the fleet an incomparable quartet. But ships of the Hood class cost over six million pounds apiece, and even so thqy do not represent even to-day’s word, let alone “the last word” in naval construction. The Hood was designed nearly four years ago, and although important alterations were made after the battle of Jutland, particularly in the matter of armour protection, we have the admission of Rear-Admiral Chatsworth, of the Naval Staff, that if the Admiralty started to build a new capital ship to-day they would not reproduce the Hood. The Admiral naturally did not give any hints as to the direction in which naval opinion is moving, but according to Sir Eustace De Eyncourt, it is not in the direction of submersible dreadnoughts to take the place of the capital ship. He declared that “with our present knowledge it would be quite impossible to design a submersible ship which, on the same displacement and at the same cost, had anything like the fighting qualities on- the surface which are possessed by the Hood.” In his opinion, and he speaks with expert knowledge, if naval warfare is to continue, the surface ship of the lino must still hold the field as the principal fighting unit of any great navy, and the consensus of naval opinion all the world over points definitely to the survival of the capital ship in spite of all that has been said about and in spite of the very optimistic statements concerning the development of aerial fighting machines. Not only the Board of • Admiralty, but all the naval authorities of the world are satisfied that the destiny of a maritime nation cannot in the present state of knowledge rest on the one or on the other. What the capital ship our Admiralty is now evolving as a result of their study of the lessons of the war will be like (if it ever comes to be built) is a matter for speculation, but meanwhile the Hood is the very biggest thing in fighting craft afloat and though much reduced in effective strength as compared to what it was in the closing months of 1918 the British Fleet remains the supreme influence by sea. The vessels under the White Ensign have at present no superiors, although that will not be true when the current American and Japanese programmes have added fresh capital ships of great power td those two navies. We can, however, afford to wait, watching the course of events abroad, and it may be that those countries which are pressing forward the construction of many costly ships before the lessons of the war have been fully digested, may yet discover that they have made bad investments.